Denmark’s Michael Valgren secured his first Grand Tour stage win of the Giro d’Italia in a nail-biting final 3km challenge to the finish line.
“That’s for my son,” he said as he collapsed to the floor at stage 17’s finish line, holding up a green model his son had built for him as a lucky charm.
The EF Education-EasyPost rider has had a long journey from an almost career-ending leg injury in 2022 to get back to the top end of competitive cycling.
Valgren, 34, had a strong race throughout the 202km course to Andalo in the Italian Dolomites, finally launching a surprise attack just over 1km from the finish line from a long and powerful breakaway.
At the foot of the final climb to the line, Colombia’s Einer Rubio and Valgren led the race, with Damiano Caruso, stage five winner Igor Arrieta of Spain, Aleksandr Vlasov and Norway’s Andreas Leknessund tailing.
The 12-time Grand Tour veteran launched with no response from the others and finished ahead of Leknessund (Uno-X Mobility) who was three seconds behind the winner. Caruso (Bahrain-Victorious) came in third behind the pair, six seconds down on Valgren.
Denmark’s Jonas Vingegaard (Visma-Lease a Bike) comfortably retained the leader’s pink jersey after finishing within the peloton. Austria’s Felix Gall (Decathlon-CMA CGM) sits in second place, four minutes and three seconds behind Vingegaard in the overall standings with the Netherlands’ Thymen Arensman in third a further 24 seconds back.
Valgren told TNT Sports: “Last year I had high hopes for a good result in this year’s competition so my son built me a Pokemon in team colours. It is my lucky charm.
“It was really hard, I was really at my limit. I’m lucky it wasn’t 5km longer.
“I missed this on my resume – my career has been pretty good but I needed this Grand Tour stage win. I’m really happy.”
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